Jane Novak's blog about Yemen

Bangladeshis have much to be proud of. They achieved independence and a pluralistic state after a hard-fought war. Nearly twenty years later they took to the streets dissatisfied with military rule and stood united for democracy. Devastating annual floods covering a third of the country does not deter their commitment to democracy and modernity. Lately Bangladesh has gained notoriety for the spread of extremism, but jihadis don’t spring from the ground like mushrooms.

And Tech Central Station April 14. “Where Free Markets Meet Technology.” (TCS motto.) They put a picture of a scary looking guy. Now it seems like a whole different article. They should have put a picture of two cute kids to give it the mood I wanted.

16 Comments

Armies of Liberation
I NEVER get tired of saying, Armies of Liberation published another tribute to democracy in the Middle East. This stop – Bangladesh (in the Arab News). Bangladeshis have much to be proud of. They achieved independence and a pluralistic state

Weekend Update, with Rusty Shackleford
Had a long weekend. Spent all day Saturday in Memphis. My first time in TN. It was one of those travel-in/travel-out on the same day deals. Can any one in Memphis tell me what the deal is with the pyramid?…

Its a great Muslim democracy, with a steady transition of power, dynamic, and forward looking. But there’s a lot of different forces enabling the jihadiis and none of them are acting in the best interest of Bangladesh.

Jane, I don’t trust your government officials and their press briefings. Therefore, I won’t make any judgment based on information provided by them. And therefore, you need to provide evidences of how the mentioned organisation provided money to the mentioned numbers of mosques to perform what illegal acts. I want you to come to this country and find out for yourself what those mosques have done with the money you are talking about and then verify the information provided by your officials. Only then I’ll appreciate your efforts.

Don’t you think it is fictitious to write about some country 8,000 miles away from home and without knowing how the air smells there?

I am often sorry that the newspapers dont publish my references with the articles so people can go back to the original sources. The souce for the 700 mosques reference was a Bangladeshi newspaper, the Daily Star, but you can see it all below:

At the same time the JMJB was formed and the JMB headed by Abdur Rahman started working in Dhaka with the same goal to turn the country into an Islamic state. With help from Galib, Rahman’s JMB militants used the facilities of some 700 mosques built across the country by the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society. The bank accounts of the society in Pakistan were seized after the 9/11 incident.

Thanks for adding another sloppy piece of article in the already over crowded anti-Bangladesh propaganda. The sources that you have mentioned are all biased and bear no representation of the real Bangladesh whatsoever.

Philip Browning has written an excellent article in the International Herald Tribune about Bangladesh. Few excerpts:

“Is Bangladesh a successful low-income democracy or a failing state? A secular Muslim exemplar or a fundamentalist seedbed? A liberal society, or one beset by corruption and political violence? A crucial component of South Asian geopolitics, or a weak and irrelevant adjunct to India?

All these descriptions contain elements of truth – except irrelevance. Bangladesh matters not just because it has 130 million people, mostly Muslim, or because it is the most densely populated country on earth, but because its Bengali identity makes it the most homogenous nation on the subcontinent.

It is all too easy, however, to overemphasize the dangers of radical Islam here. As in India, there is little history of Islamic violence – more of leftist violence and general political thuggery. The bedrock identity of Bangladesh is being Bengali first, Muslim second.

The bottom line is that Bangladesh remains, with some blemishes, a plural, secular, open and democratic nation whose virtues are seldom credited and whose problems stem in part from the electoral arithmetic and financing needs of party politics.”

About

Committee to Protect JournalistsAccess to U.S. journalist Jane Novak’s Web site, Armiesofliberation, which is frequently critical of the Yemeni government, was repeatedly blocked inside Yemen.

Yemen Observer The security source said that the captured elements’ confessions disclosed that they used to write reports about public opinion trends and sent them together with some photographs to Abdulmalik al-Huthi and external journalists, particularly to the American journalist Jane Novak.

The New York Times Ms. Novak’s perpetual harping on these themes appears to infuriate the Yemeni authorities.

Yemen Times Jane Novak, an American researcher, interviewed Hashid, addressing issues related to human rights, freedom, prisons, and inmates in Yemen. The interview was downloaded onto many news websites, enraging a lot of people.

Aden News Agency Jane Novak is a name that has become coupled with Yemen, not Yemen that is known as it is known by those who doesn't know it, but Yemen as it known by its people.

Gary Swenchonis Sr. Jane was instrumental in helping my wife and myself in many of our successes that we have had since attempting to hold our own government responsible for the promises that they all made to the murdered sailors and the surviving crew of the USS Cole. She helped us achieve a small measure of justice.

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Original work: copyright 2012 by Jane Novak